The Internet has revolutionized the way individuals communicate with one another, particularly in the field of electronic commerce, where the marketing and sales of goods and services have become increasingly interactive. For example, a prospective customer may access the Internet to search for or browse through items or categories of items that may be available at an online marketplace, and the online marketplace may provide information to the prospective customer over the Internet regarding one or more items as he or she contemplates making a purchase. In order to obtain information regarding items or categories of items over the Internet, customers usually provide keywords or other data to online marketplaces through text-based (i.e., by typing words or phrases into text boxes) or audio-based (i.e., by providing spoken words or phrases to the online marketplace through telephonic communications or speech recognition software) interfaces, and such keywords or data are then transferred through one or more applications to an online marketplace over the Internet. Reciprocally, the online marketplace interprets such keywords or data provided by the customer, and, in response, transfers information pertaining to such keywords or data to the customer in the form of web pages or other files containing text, images, audio or video content over the Internet for display by one more applications, such as web browsers.
As Internet access and functionality have improved, and as the level of sophistication of Internet programming has advanced, the percentage of Internet sites that provide video capabilities to users has increased dramatically. Today, many commercial services such as Skype® or Google Talk® enable video chatting between users over the Internet, including real-time or near-real-time audio and video communication functions. Additionally, online video-sharing sites such as YouTube® or Hulu® enable users to download desired audio and video files over the Internet; it is estimated that nearly one billion unique users download over three billion hours of video content from YouTube® alone each month. Moreover, the capacity of computer software and hardware to capture and interpret video and audio content has also improved. For example, facial recognition applications are frequently utilized for security monitoring, even in large and rapidly changing environments such as airports and stadiums, and license plate capturing software is regularly used for the enforcement of parking and traffic regulations, even where the tracking platforms, or the vehicles being tracked, are traveling at high rates of speed.
Despite the evolution of Internet communications, particularly regarding the use of video technology, existing systems and methods for communicating over the Internet are typically limited to communications containing written (i.e., text- or character-based) or oral (i.e., audio and/or video files) content, expressed in one or more languages that may be typed or spoken. Such systems and methods, however, are unable to enable users to communicate through the use of sign languages, which serve as the primary communications channel for the hearing impaired, as well as small children who have yet to master the arts of oral or written communication.
Although existing computer-based communications systems and methods enable users to transmit messages including typed, text-based words or phrases, or acoustic signals that may be translated or dissected into text-based words or phrases, it is believed that no known systems or methods for communicating over the Internet are able to sense a user's motions, gestures and/or mannerisms in accordance with a recognized sign language (i.e., such as expressions of letters, words or phrases), to convert such motions into tangible computer instructions or information, and to transmit a message containing such instructions or information to a server or other computer-related machine. Similarly, it is also believed that no known systems and methods may translate a message consisting of typed words or acoustic signals into a video file or other form of media containing expressions of computer-generated responses in accordance with a recognized sign language. Because sign languages are the primary means of communication for large segments of the population, the many benefits of the Internet, particularly the advantages and improvements to electronic commerce provided by the Internet, are foreclosed to the hearing impaired, small children and others who communicate exclusively in sign language, or are unable to communicate in text-based or oral forms.